Can Performances By This Group Be a Legitimate Part of a Public Education?

Parents Forum
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<p>The group is “Todd Keene and The Power Team” and their mission is (from their website <a href=“http://www.thepowerteam.com/vision.html):%5B/url%5D”>http://www.thepowerteam.com/vision.html):</a> </p>

<p>“To reach people of all ages, who would typically not ever attend an event in a church setting, with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Drawing people from all walks of life together into one setting, through the use of performing visually explosive feats of strength, by incredible athletes, who share the life-changing message of the cross.”</p>

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<p>My first reaction was: Are you kidding? Of course not! But then I read what their school program consists of, and it seems clear that it has been designed (at least on paper) to emphasize values and not religion, and to dovetail with schools’ educational programs.</p>

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<p>I don’t think there’s any good reason to exclude speakers from doing a valid, nonreligious school program just because they happen to be religious, or motivated to do the program by their religious beliefs. A talk on ethics or on parent-child relationships by a priest or rabbi would be fine. On that basis, I would have a hard time finding anything wrong with this.</p>

<p>Sorry.</p>

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<p>I agree. Unless they have done a deliberately deceptive job of eradicating specifically religious content from their site and their video, it would appear that they may do a valuable job reaching some kids.</p>

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<p>I’m actually got a different take on this. As long as groups do not overtly “push” their religion as the only religion or the best religion I think that it’s good for groups of diverse people to find common ground. Our children are not going to find many organizations that are not comprised of a diverse group of people with different religious beliefs. All children will need to work together and in teams when they enter business toward a common goal in this decade and going forward. It is quite possible to be a religious person or a religious organization and have a universal goal. I think that is possibly what this organization strives to do in the schools. Simply “being a religious organization” might not be an exclusionary factor. To me that should be the spirit of “public” in the word “public schools.”</p>

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<p>Even if they are not pushing religion overtly, they are still to

I wouldn’t want any religious group to come to my kid’s school to preach

.</p>

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<p>I’m not too fond of any religion being taught in schools, BUT</p>

<p>-My daughter was required to celebrate the Solstice with her crystal wearing teachers.</p>

<p>-The school director required participation in dredels and latkis at Hunnicka and placed a minora in every classroom, but when I suggested placing a creche in a classroom she blew up saying that it would offend parents. (sorry for the mis-spellings)</p>

<p>-School “holiday” concerts that include only pointedly unflattering parodies of Christmas hymns (How about a mid-winter concert of show tunes in January instead?)</p>

<p>Since when is every religion okay - so long as it is not Christian. A little balance please!</p>

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<p>Hear, hear, toadstool.</p>

<p>The link is down so I couldn’t read up on this particular group, but I once attended a one-man show that sounds similar to this. It was 99% show, 1% serious talk, and the guy talked about his faith in a “This is what works for me” kind of way. No one was offended.</p>

<p>I don’t understand why atheists, people who think religion is a crutch/the opiate of the people, or folks who just aren’t religious are so afraid of allowing people to express their religious beliefs. If there is no God, then what that person says about God is completely false, silly, and no different from someone standing up and yelling “The sky is green!” Just laugh to yourself and ignore the religious stuff. As the poster above pointed out, other aspects of the message might be worthwhile to your child, such as avoiding drugs and alcohol. Chances are that a kid raised by you, will share a lot of your views on religion, and so if you think Christianity is hokey, then he will likely think the same and discount what he hears–esp. if you tell him to.</p>

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<p>oldfort writes:</p>

<p>“I wouldn’t want any religious group to come to my kid’s school to preach
Quote:The benefits of abstinence” </p>

<p>Is it because there are no benefits to abstinence?</p>

<p>I am trying to understand why is this a problem or if is abstinence is “guilty” by its association to Christian values, which apparently are a no-no in the minds of some people.</p>

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<p>I have mixed feelings about this, and it really depends on exactly what they do and say. Do they hand out stuff that points to an evangelistic website, for example?</p>

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<p>Just to help those who might think this is OK mull it over a bit more, what would you think if the National Abortion Rights Action League came to the school and did a program on the need for good prenatal care, without overtly mentioning abortion?</p>

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<p>Groups similar to this have come to my child’s school. I have no problem with them as long as they are not overtly religious. That said, I question the value of these programs. All of the drinking,drugs, sex etc. still seems to go on. As for the valuing each student, the school could save money by no having these “programs” and simply make an effort to actually value all of the students and stop running on favoritism.</p>

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<p>Abstinence may be a value to some people, but it may not be to others, just like many of religious values. If a school wants to have an intellectual discussion (or teaching) of different religions, I wouldn’t have any issues with that. But the last thing I want is to have a religious group come to my kid’s school to preach their values, not matter how they try to disguise it.</p>

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<p>Somehow I suspect that prosthetizing slips into the program on some level…But my biggest objection is that these programs are utterly non academic wastes of time that cut into an already short school day.</p>

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<p>It is not illegal, if the laws are correctly applied, but many schools would not want anything to do with this. Now if it were teaching Islam or some unusual religious sect, it would be welcomed by our school district. Anything except Christianity. Went to the Winter Holiday concert and there was not one Christian Christmas song. Kwanza, Hannukah, Santa and Rudolph, but no “Silent Night”, or “Away in a Manger”. </p>

<p>My son’s private school has had every offbeat group in the world there with programs but they went nuts when a bunch of priests/brothers from a Catholic group wanted to start some program that was not even religious in content.</p>

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<p>^Well, there’s that (referring to #13). Personally, I am pretty certain that the sight of musclemen blowing up hot water bottles and folding skillets would more likely have driven me towards than away from drugs. But I’m sure that it appeals to plenty of kids, and there’s room for all types in Assembly.</p>

<p>As for abstinence: I don’t know how many of us are really going to stand up and say we object to our children being taught its virtues. It does have virtues, even if they are fewer than is generally supposed, and even if the bio-psychological deck is overwhelmingly stacked against it. Someone ought to make the case for it, and it might as well be religious people because they tend to be enthusiastic about it, and there’s a decent chance that they aren’t being hypocritical.</p>

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<p>You know what? I have seen this exhibition. Many years ago. They did not do it in the kids’ schools but they did get flyers about it at school and wanted to go see the show. So we went. It was held in a evangelist church. It was quite a show, and the boys loved it. At the end of the show, they started asking who wanted to be saved, the music started and they urged all in the audience to come and be saved. Like those old time revivals. My kids were mesmerized by the show men and the audience and were about to join the joyous lines to the stage, when I grabbed them and steered them out, reminding them that they were Catholic. They looked like they were in a daze, shook it off, and we went home. They talked about the show on the way home and did not say a word about the revival part. </p>

<p>Something I had forgotten, as this was 15 or so years ago. They are still doing this, I guess.</p>

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<p>toadstool, cpt, GFG:</p>

<p>This really isn’t my issue, but I get a little grumpy when I hear how Christianity is discriminated against in our schools. Unless you are a member of a non-Christian religious minority, you have no idea how massive, overwhelming, and constant the overt and covert Christian messages in our society are. If somehow you completely cleansed schools of all references to Christianity, and scheduled a daily hour of instruction about some other religion, that wouldn’t even begin to balance things out. Balancing the messages, levelling the playing field, is such a remote and impossible goal that it is silly even to think about it. The most that happens is that non-Christian kids get some periodic reminders that people remember that they are there, and that it’s alright to be them, and Christian kids get reminded that not everyone is Christian and that the non-Christians have the same kind of stupid customs they do and don’t eat babies.</p>

<p>Personally, I made my peace with this long ago. I would put “Silent Night” on the Christmas program, and I wouldn’t mind if all references to Hanukah were excised. (Hanukah is such a feeble substitute for Christmas that reminding people of it in the middle of Christmas season just underlines how inadequate it is.) I don’t believe that public creches foreshadow a Taliban-like Christian theocracy. But I would have to admit that, growing up, most of my Jewish friends felt horribly assaulted by Christmas, Christmas, Christmas, and really yearned for some acknowledgement that they were there, too. There was real pain there. So, really, I don’t mind either if December gets turned into Diwali/Ramadan/Kwanzaa/Hanukah/Solstice season at school, and everyone pretends to pretend that Christmas is irrelevant. If you are a Christian, you get your faith and presence affirmed everywhere else, 24-7.</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t necessarily have a problem with it as long as it was put on by volunteers - for free. I wouldn’t want public money to support the group.</p>

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<p>It’s sore subject to me that when school time is too often used for non academic “enrichment”. I would unequivocally say that the Powershow does not belong in schools. Especially with the revival ending.</p>

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<p>My many problems with this group and others like it are, in no particular order:</p>

<p>*It is, as Deidre says above, a waste of time in an already busy schedule.</p>

<p>*Since their purpose as an organization is to reach people who have no interest in Christian teachings with Christian teachings by performing tricks, I will take them at face value and presume that’s what they are doing in my public school. I don’t argue, or even think, there is anything wrong with Christianity or any other religion or lack thereof. The founders of our country so highly valued their own religions that they understood and believed, in writing the Constitution, that the State would endorse no religion so as to ensure everyone’s freedom to practice theirs. I think this is a fundamental right, and it disturbs me that we have become so accepting as a society of this blatant infusion of religion into the public schools, so long as it is an approved brand of religion.</p>

<p>*TheGFG said, “No one was offended,” and I think this is what a lot of people think. Unless you polled everyone in the school, the community, the country, you don’t know that. But that’s really beside the point, the Establishment clause of The Constitution forbids the state from endorsing the beliefs of any particular religion, there is no exclusion for a case when everyone in the school seems to want to.</p>

<p>*I think Hunt’s NARAL analogy is a good one. How about having a Wicka organization come and, without actively recruiting kids for their ceremonies, teach the medicinal properties of herbs to students while praising their pagan gods with every act of magic they perform? I’ll bet most people would find this valuable information, but surely it would offend at least the fundamentalist Christians in the room, even if they didn’t make their feelings known. It would be just as wrong and I would object just as much.</p>

<p>*My son is alone among his friends in his discomfort with the religiosity of the group of licensed and ordained ministers. If he speaks his mind–and he does–he is harassed and harangued as a freak, told he’s going to hell, blah blah blah, by all his “Christian” friends. He’s a mainstream kind of kid who is pretty popular and friends with kids in every clique at school; it’s not about some inability to accept others, it’s more about being singled out and disrespected for his beliefs. That the public school he attends is creating an environment that virtually guarantees this will happen is wrong.</p>

<p>*Since I know beyond any doubt whatsoever that if some out-of-the-mainstream cult wanted to send their proslytizing team to the school, and if by some miracle they were allowed to do so, the overwhelmingly Christian community as a whole would be outraged. I find it the height of hypocracy to not apply their much revered (and rightly so) Golden Rule, and not do to anyone (even one) else what they would not want done to them.</p>

<p>*They performed only three tricks, had a lot to say how they were druggie losers before they found the Lord, and announced that if anyone wanted to see more they’d have to come to the church where they’d be performing after the sermon the next night.</p>

<p>*It speaks volumes that they call their performances “Crusades”. This really disgusts me and even scares me a bit. </p>

<p>All that said, a like-minded teacher, kept him during the period telling the assistant principal she needed to conference with him, thus avoiding at least the personal issue with it.</p>